ATLANTA—From the moment Louisville guard Kevin Ware suffered one of the most improbable college basketball injuries in recent memory, the story has been about emotion, triumph and the uncommon bond that can be generated among young people on an athletic team. For the next few days, though—perhaps for the next several days—it is about strategy.

Kevin Ware the young athlete has been the subject of considerable empathy (former Redskins great Joe Theismann, who suffered a similar injury), sympathy (Duke’s Tyrone Thornton, who fired the shot Ware was challenging as he was hurt) and concern (nearly everyone assembled at Lucas Oil Stadium, and millions more watching on television).

Louisville guard Kevin Ware isn't just a sympathetic figure. He is a major contributor to the Cardinals' success, and his loss will be felt on the court. (AP Photo)

Now, though, at least for the remaining one or two games of Louisville’s season, he must be replaced.

His is not an insignificant presence in the Louisville rotation. A player averaging only 4.5 points on the season might appear to be a small portion of what makes the Cardinals (33-5) the No. 1 overall seed in the tournament and a better than even-money favorite to leave the Georgia Dome early Tuesday morning with their school’s third NCAA championship.

“We don’t have a backcourt substitute,” Pitino said Thursday, at his first news conference of the 2013 NCAA Final Four. “We had a great rotation. All three guards were playing well.

“Obviously, when you press and run as much as we do, it becomes a very great concern when you don’t have a substitute … Now, we can’t change our style of play, because we won’t win or have a chance of winning.”

The history of teams that have had to survive a significant injury or absence that developed in proximity to the tournament is not exceptional. There were the round-of-32 eliminations of No. 2 seed Cincinnati (Kenyon Martin) and No. 1 seed Arizona (Loren Woods) in 2000, the Sweet 16 loss of No. 1 seed Syracuse (Arinze Onuaku) in 2010 or the SU’s Elite Eight loss (without ineligible Fab Melo) in 2012.

In Louisville’s three NCAA Tournament games prior to the injury, Ware had averaged 20 minutes. A chunk of that came in last Friday’s Sweet 16 game against Pacific-12 Tournament champion Oregon, when Cardinals star point guard Peyton Siva picked up two personals in the first five minutes, the second on a reckless sort of charging foul. In Siva’s place, Ware produced a career-best 11 points on 5-of-7 shooting and committed only one turnover.

The possibility of a Siva—or, less likely, All-American shooting guard Russ Smith—encountering foul trouble now may be the greatest single threat to Louisville’s title chances. Before it was a potential nuisance. Now it could become a calamity.

Siva has reached the four-personals mark eight times this season, including two of the team’s defeats and challenging victories over Illinois State and Memphis. He has shown he can play with fouls, appearing for the practical equivalent of 30 minutes or more in five of those eight games.

But remember how lost the Cards were when Siva was disqualified in the second of five overtimes against Notre Dame. The Irish were a fine team this season, but they did not guard like Wichita State.

“I’ll say this without any exaggeration,” Pitino said. “They’re the best team we will have faced this year at the defensive end. They are Marquette on steroids in terms of the way they play defense. If you grab an offensive rebound, they slap it away. They don’t let you go into the paint without four guys attacking you. They are the toughest team to score against.”

In Louisville’s regular rotation, the Cardinals lost an extraordinary amount of leadership and institutional knowledge any time Siva went to the bench, either for a rest or because the team needed a change. With Ware entering, though, there was an immediate and obvious escalation in terms of athleticism and perimeter shooting potential.

So they didn’t get better without Siva in the game, but they got better at something useful.

In order to give Smith and Siva their customary rest in this game, Pitino will have only a couple of options, neither of them particularly alluring. He can send in walk-on junior Tim Henderson; his only appearance of more than seven minutes this year came in a narrow home win over Pitt, when Ware was suspended for the game.

“He’s got to do the best job he can do,” Pitino said.

Or Pitino can field a bigger lineup, with either Siva or Smith at the point and wings Wayne Blackshear and Luke Hancock on the floor together. That makes Louisville far less dynamic, less able to attack defensively. It would make them a more effective 3-point team, but that hasn’t really been the personality that has carried them to Pitino’s seventh Final Four.

“We’re just going to have to mix it up,” the coach said earlier in the week. “We have a lot of frontcourt depth, but we don't have a lot of backcourt depth. That's pretty much it.”